Facing Fears from the Past

This episode had two main plot lines, the relationship between Cat Grant and her estranged son and a White Martian…yes I said it a White Martian attack on National City and J’onn J’onzz having to face his fears to stop it. This show continues to push strong narratives and this week it was almost heavy handed in the way it tackled racism, genocide, and discrimination based on color or origin. It comes at a time where bigotry towards Muslims and a leading presidential candidate calls for the ban of all Muslims from our country. Winter did a good job of expression his view on this subject through the lends of Martian Manhunter’s back story and Kara coming out to the city. I love how this show has no fear in tackling these subjects but I can see it turning off some people because of how heavy it is. Personally I am good with it and happy to see it but the continuing narrative of empowering women, racism, sexism, and nationalism are front and center and are not really pulling any punches.

White Martian vs. Martian Manhunter and Supergirl

White Martian terrorizing National City

We see Senator Miranda Crane come to town to preach he anti-alien retoric and she has a huge audience. This was straight out of a Trump rally even to the point of Crane mentioning that she would build a Dome to keep aliens out. The disdain for aliens was so strong that you knew something was going to happened. Right before this press conference Kara is talking to Cat and she know Crane is a bigot and prejudice but admits interviewing her and giving her front page billing is good for business because people eat this stuff up. Not to go into a political rant but this is the same reason Trump is still ahead in his party and has any chance because new channels are not calling him on his racism, sexism and quite frankly bullshit because he is fantastic for ratings and clicks and just like Cat Grant says, its a bottom line business and she generates interest. Anyway, as expected an alien shows up at the press conference but not Supergirl pleading for her humanity it was a freaking White Martian!! The Martian started terrorizing the city, Hank see’s this alien and is stopped in his tracks. Supergirl is chasing the senator and White Martian into a tunnel where she finds the Senator and brings he back to the DEO. At the DEO Jimmy figures out that the eyes of the White Martian and Eyes of the Senator were the same and Hank figured out she wasn’t her because she mentioned a White Martian where Hank never told her thats what that alien was. White Martians just like Green Martian can shape shift and the White Martian went off. The team was able to fight it off good enough for it to leave but Hank had some explaining to do.

Martians dying on Mars

Hank then explains to Alex and Kara that on his planet the White Martians came from the ground and killed all the Green Martians. They thought Green Martians were the scum of the planet and needed to be eradicated. The White Martians burned all the Green Martians and J’onn was able to escape to earth to get away and he is the last known living Green Martian and this White Martian was out to finish the job. Alex want Hank to just be Martian Manhunter all the time but he explaines to her….again that he tried that before and it doesn’t work out. This is the one part of the episode that bothers me. Alex is suppose to be a smart character but she doesn’t understand the difference between Kara in her natural form and J’onn J;onzz in his?? This is a bit ridiculous because its clear how people would treat Hank and Hank has explained to her before what happened and how her father died trying to protect him from people hunting him.

So eventually they convince Hank to contact the White Martian telepathically for a meet up to get the Senator and Alex falls for the Shape Shift again while Hank finds the real Senator Crane. Martian Manhunter and the White Martian end up fighting but J’onn was still fighting his fears, but he got help from Kara and they were able to take the White Martian down. At this point Martian Manhunter wanted to kill the White Martian. Personally I was with him, I get tired of this notion that you can’t be heroic if you kill someone. In real life police kill people all the time and sometimes not even people who deserve to be killed however to the majority of this country they are still seen as heroes. So this lecture by Alex and Kara to J’onn when he had a chance to end this threat made me not like them. J’onn knew the right thing to do was to kill him but he went against his best interest and let the White Martian live and they locked up it, but the last thing we hear from the White Martian says that there are more of them out there and they will find out a Green Martian is here and they will come for him. So expect to see the White Martian again probably by the end of this season.

Cat Adam, and Kara

Cat and Adam meet for the first time in a long time

The B-plot in this movie is the reconciliation of Cat and her son Adam. The story doesn’t require a lot of attention, but basically Kara sends a letter to Adam as Cat expressing that she wants to build a relationship, Cat being the proud Alpha female that she is, was upset but you could tell she wants to make it work but doesn’t know how. The first attempt at dinner didn’t work and Kara helped both Adam and Cat give each other a second chance, this time with Kara as the mediator. At the end of the day they mend their relationship. But, for me the biggest thing comes at the end when Adam tell Cat he like Kara and ask Kara out on a date. To me this can only mean one of two things, either Adam is somehow a bad person especially after Maxwell Lord figured out who Supergirl was last episode or Kara will fall for Adam and its going to make Winn more jealous and possibly turn him into the new Toyman. I think its typical to take the “good guy” and Winn and have the woman reject him which then justifies his heel turn, but in this case I don’t see any good coming out of that moment where Winn’s kiss didn’t go well.